For many people, the thought that Dele Momodu wants to run for president of our country breaks their ribs; he simply can’t be serious, they say. Ask them why so and the mumbling starts; it’s just not ‘thinkable’. I plead guilty too.
But Bashorun Dele Momodu keeps coming up and keeps telling the world that cares to listen that he’s damn serious about the race; not only that, he intends to win and knows how to do it. It must also be said that his declaration to run is not an afterthought. On the other hand it is an ‘aforethought’, and if early declaration is the key criterion for winning the race, then Dele should be home and dry. I think even Mr Goodluck Jonathan was still feeling the waters when Dele had jumped in headlong, clothes and all!
One cannot but feel some pity for the amiable brother. Why exactly can’t Dele run? What makes it so abhorrent or that ridiculous? And these are the very questions he is the first to throw at the many ‘doubting Thomas’ he confronts every minute, every day since he made his intention known. He threw it at me about a year ago when we alighted the same plane in Abuja and the same go-getter miss-no-chance feller with the disarming humility I’ve known for some years insisted on giving me a ride to wherever I was heading.
The long drive into town got me where he wanted me: a captive sitting target for shooting practice! At least that was how I felt.
When it comes to style, Dele has it – perhaps in excess. And that’s one big part of the problem many have with him that they cannot give words to themselves. Dele would dismiss the bellyaching as “bad-belle” and part of the natural pull-him-down proclivity of the Nigerian who will writhe at the thought of someone looking like he’s escaped from the crab-basket when he should be right in there ‘shuffering-and-shmiling’ like everyone else.
Dele’s ‘loud’, even abrasive, style could be said to come with the territory he’s belonged to for quite a while – showbiz, celebrity-journalism ‘n stuff – and one he enjoyed and took full advantage of all the way. He has self-developed himself from very humble beginnings into a popular face amongst celebrities, and his name is on the tongues of popular musicians of the day. Generationally, he’s ‘big brother’ to the many young celebrity-publishers, writers, entertainers and social revellers of this generation. Dele is the trailblazer that has turned his OVATION magazine into an international brand of significance and, perhaps, fortune.
And that’s part of the angst of many a ‘serious minded’ snobbish intellectuals (many of them pseudo) with the brother – he does not belong to their puffed-up, big-grammar, sophist world, nor to the high-brow gilt-edged world of blue-chip corporate business.
But they are wrong. As anyone who encounters him would attest, Dele is made of sterner stuff. Equipped with first and second university degrees (regardless of what disciplines), he has gone through the crucible of classroom teaching and business development and he is able to take on anyone on their turf and give a good account of his self. He may be loquacious but his is not an empty loquacity; he is brilliant, well informed, and eloquent.
No time has he proved this capacity more than in the interview he had with the “Nigeria Village Square” Internet newsgroup on one of their “Hotseat Presidential Interview” series. It is a series that has featured early runners like Bukola Saraki, Muhammadu Buhari, and Nuhu Ribadu. Dele Momodu came out of the no-holds-barred interview with the top team of academicians and pundits smelling like roses, taking on all issues from why he is running to his vision for Nigeria, from electricity to economy, from security to social contract with the people.
So why is Dele still not selling?
When a week or so ago he gave me a call again, the first after our Abuja chance meeting, I tried to raise what I considered some of the salient difficulties he would face, but Dele remained undaunted, even more positive, ready to turn disadvantage to advantage. He is persuasive and his optimism is hard to ignore even if it appears drunken.
I can totally empathise with Bashorun Dele Momodu, the presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP). I was ‘drunken’ too when I ran for senate in 2003 and, incidentally, also on the platform of the same NCP. When I ran it looked to many people like I was out of my mind, in my instance more because of the party platform than the level. I certainly couldn’t be said to be running ‘above my station’ shooting for senate. But when you are bitting by the bug you see what everyone else could not see, you see what is possible and not why it is impossible; or, as the saying goes, ‘obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal’.
Party platform is a big issue, methinks. Dele has taken his ware from the Labour Party to the NCP, both minority parties in the most acute sense. Running on either is almost as good as running as “independent candidate”. You are running virtually on your own steam as there are no meaningful party structures or presence in many of states.
But as far as Dele could see that should pose no problem: the presidential should be different; people would go for the person they believe in the most regardless of party affiliations; more people don’t belong to any party than those that do; etc. In my time I got brazen enough to confront party chiefs of the big parties (PDP and AD then) privately, demanding to know if in their heart of hearts they’ll deny me their secret ballot even when they know their candidate is ‘inferior’? That’s the conceit the bug infects you with!
Having said that, it must be noted that a Dr Segun Mimiko won the gubernatorial in Ondo State in 2007 on the unknown Labour Party and even the NCP recorded one House of Reps winner in that 2003 election. So things are possible.
Nothing irks Bashorun Dele Momodu more than the thought that he is reaching beyond his “level” in going for the presidency. And I agree with him, it is sad. The Yoruba would say: kini obo se s’ori ti inaki o se? (How does the monkey act that a chimp can’t?). Dele goes over each and every person who has ever been our Head of State or President and wonders how any of them is any better qualified, or even bred, than himself? Again, he is right! He half comes from the South-south. And if it is on the account of “the turn” of SS to produce the president, then Dele has my vote.
Dele touches me with his passion and his sincerity. More than anything, he touches me with a humility that belies the image of the ‘pompous and empty’ that his celebrity fame confers. I’ve known Dele for decades and he does not tire to embarrass me, even in public, with his courtesies; and I protest to no avail. He is also kind hearted and generous as many have attested. I remember he went out of his way looking for me in 2003 to donate his “widow’s mite” to my senatorial campaign.
Nothing one gives such a person that is too much. And it is a pity that all I have to give this young and great brother now is my prayer: Dele, may your tribe multiply, may the road rise to meet you, and may God bless your enterprise.
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